MACROSS: Retribution
by Samuel Maverick
Summary: A madman threatens the stability of the Delta, and only one young woman can stop him...
1. Prologue

LEGAL STUFF The Super Dimension Fortress Macross Copyright © Mainichi Broadcasting, Big West. The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Flash Back 2012, The Super Dimension Fortress Macross [the Movie]: Do You Remember Love?, and Macross 3D Copyright © Big West. Macross Plus Copyright © Big West/Macross Project. Macross 7 Copyright © Big West, Macross 7 Project. Macross Dynamite 7 Copyright © Big West/OVA Macross 7 Project. Macross Zero Copyright © 2002 Big West/Macross Zero Project. Concepts, characters and setting used without permission.  
  
Original characters, ships, settings and mecha Copyright © 2002 Samuel Maverick.  
  
This story would not be possible with out the inspiration of the good people at Studio Nue, the diverision of the games at the Anime Manga Roleplaying Network (www.unspacy.com) and the technical information from the Macross Compendium (www.anime.net/macross/).  
  
No kittens were harmed in the production of this story  
  
PROLOGUE Planet Avon, SM-1241 system, the Delta November 29, 2047  
  
The eye wrenching, stomach twisting color effect of hyperspace dissolved in spray of green and white light. Teresa gazed out of the bridge viewing window with a sense of relief. She hated hyperspace with a passion. There were very few things she disliked more. The whirling colors and gavity disturbances were nausiating. She was glad to be back in real space once more.  
  
"On projected course, sir," one of the Zentradi operators announced. "Velocity is nineteen kilometers per second. We will cross the terminator in eight minutes, and seventeen minutes to intercept."  
  
"Thank you, Kurn," Jamar Onyeagu replied, over steepled fingers. Looking in his direction, Teresa suppressed a shudder. She had never really liked the man, but in recent years that feeling had evolved into a kind of creeping loathing. Onyeagu was definitely among that very things worse than hyperspace.  
  
"I'll get the wings moving, by your leave," Teresa said, turning toward the bridge doors.  
  
"No," Onyeagu didn't shift his position. Only the pale blue eye gave any sign of life. The other eye, milky white with scarring seemed completely dead, inspite of its movement. Not another muscle moved. The one clear eye bored into Teresa for a moment, before shifting back to the tactical display that now dominated the bridge. "Miss Vaninetti, I'll need you here, to coordinate the fighter groups. You are too valuable to risk out there, even for a mission of this level of import."  
  
Teresa felt her jaw clench. That was an out and out lie. Teresa was certainly organized--a fair pilot and a better leader--but she was hardly indespensable. Onyeagu could do her job far better himself, and he knew it. Not to mention the four or five others who were better suited to the task. "Yes sir," Teresa replied, drawing his eye back to her for an instant. She felt suddenly trapped.  
  
Perhaps it was her connection with Gewndolyn Stackhouse. Onyeagu had some kind of grudge against Teresa's former lover. And it wouldn't have been the first time he had tried to use Teresa as a pawn against Stack. If only he knew.  
  
Teresa began coordinating the launch of various mecha. Setting up the combat formations and sector assingments took nearly ten minutes. It wasn't a task she relished. She wanted to be out there with them. Where she might be able to save lives. Of the crew, only she was aware that they were rushing headlong into an ambush. She had helped to arrange it after all. "All groups report ready to maneuver on your command, sir," she reported.  
  
"Instruct them to maintain course and speed."  
  
Teresa resisted the urge to turn around. She exchanged surprized glances with the communications officer, before relaying the order. It was the navigator, Kurn who pointed out the obvious.  
  
"Sir, if we don't maneuver shortly, we will overshoot the target."  
  
Onyeagu smiled. The boyish grin looked out of place on the pale gaunt man. "Ah, but that supposes that the convoy is our target totday," He sounded as though he wanted to laugh. Teresa was begining to think the joke was on her.  
  
"Our objective is not a supplies raid," he explained in a more level tone. "The Vulcan ore processing platform has been a source of ready supplies for enemies, and a major reason for the failure of previous efforts to throw off the yoke of our U.N. oppressor. Today, that changes."  
  
Teresa glanced over her should, and found Onyeagu looking directly at her, that cold, dead eye reflecting the light. She couldn't look away.  
  
"Platform intercept in twelve minutes," Kurn reported.  
  
Teresa turned back to the communications station biting her lower lip.  
  
"Excellent," Onyeagu said. "Mr. Bunting, please escort Miss Vaninetti to the brig. I shall have some questions for her once this engagement is over."  
  
Teresa bolted. If she could make the hangar deck, she could launch in her VF-14 and make planet fall on Avon in 20 minutes. Onyeagu would have to abondon his glorious attack if he tried to chase her down. Two running steps brought her the bridge door, which opened obediently. The companionway was wall to wall with guards.  
  
Onyeagu chuckled, "I thought you might feel that way, Terry, but fear not. Your interrogation will be no more painful than you deserve."  
  
Plans flew through Teresa's head. She could try to fight her way through, and likely recieve a royal beating. She could try bluffing, but at best it would delay the inevitable. The only viable option was to go for one of the guard's weapons. She'd be too far out of line for a clean shot at Onyeagu, but she deny him the satisfaction of killing her.  
  
"Keep you friend close, and your enemies closer, so they say," Onyeagu taunted. "I intend to keep you very close for years to come."  
  
"Sir, the plaform is within visual range," Kurn interrupted.  
  
Teresa sagged slightly in defeat. She didn't have the guts for suicide. Not with Onyeagu dangling that sliver of hope. She cursed him, but nore more than she cursed herself. 


	2. September 19, 2050

LEGAL STUFF The Super Dimension Fortress Macross Copyright © Mainichi Broadcasting, Big West. The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Flash Back 2012, The Super Dimension Fortress Macross [the Movie]: Do You Remember Love?, and Macross 3D Copyright © Big West. Macross Plus Copyright © Big West/Macross Project. Macross 7 Copyright © Big West, Macross 7 Project. Macross Dynamite 7 Copyright © Big West/OVA Macross 7 Project. Macross Zero Copyright © 2002 Big West/Macross Zero Project. Concepts, characters and setting used without permission.  
  
Original characters, ships, settings and mecha Copyright © 2002 Samuel Maverick.  
  
This story would not be possible with out the inspiration of the good people at Studio Nue, the diverision of the games at the Anime Manga Roleplaying Network (www.unspacy.com) and the technical information from the Macross Compendium (www.anime.net/macross/).  
  
No kittens were harmed in the production of this story.  
  
  
  
CHAPTER 1 September 19, 2050  
  
New Devonshire, Planet Avon, SM-1241 system, the Delta  
  
The apartment was a remarkable mess. The coffee table was littered with various dinner boxes and take out wrappers. The last weeks laundry was scattered across every article of furniture, still waiting to be folded. The vid-screen was dusy from long neglect. Curtains hung open, letting in the last rays of the setting sun. The cat slunk careful across the futon, hunting an errant sock.  
  
Oblivious to it all, Summer Gordon worked her keyboard. Her fingers flew across the optical keys as if posessed. Her short, pale hair was in disarray, as she couldn't be bothered with it. She hadn't been bothered much beyond keeping it free of tangles in near a month. She wore only a tee shirt and a pair of shorts, the same clothes she'd slept in. A mug of hot tea sat beside her right hand.  
  
The cat pounced, catching the footware by surprise, and sliding across the hard wood floor before fetching against the entertainment center. Summer looked up.  
  
"Socks," she said, sternly. Socks looked up at her mistress, wide eyes trying to determine if she had crossed some boundry of activity by reading Summer's mood. The cat's prey, and namesake, slipped from her grasp, causing a made scramble to wrest the devilish thing under control.  
  
By the time the cat had mastered her foe, Summer was there, picking the animal up. "Come here, you," Summer said, scratching between the cat's ears. Socks immediately began to purr. "You're certainly easy to please." She set the cat down next to her display projector, and returned to work. Sock examined the holographic image for moment brefore trying to bat the cursor out of the air.  
  
Summer returned to her work, humming a tune now. "You could be a bit more helpful," she told the cat, who ignored her, focusing one the confounding cursor. "Not that you should get a job," Summer continued. "there isn't enough work for we humans. You could help me out with this song. Peter Roundtree is more than interested in buying a few tracks for the Guns Live comback album, and a tidy sale like that will pay for your kibble."  
  
Socks looked from the display to Summer, then sprang off the desk, bounced lightly from Summer's shoulder to the dining table where she began to bat about her favorite toy, a wad of tin foil.  
  
"Freeloader," Summer muttered. She turned back to her display. Socks had somehow managed to bring up the message cue during her acrobatic departure. Summer was faced with the string of past due notices that had been accumulating there. She sighed and keyed off the display. There was nothing so effective as mounting bills at killing the creative mood.  
  
She leaned back in her seat, sipping her tea. She'd come out to Avon, because of the planet's triving mining trade. That had been one of her bigger mistakes. A steadly escalating series of attacks on Avon's orbital mines, and convoys had lead to a nasty economic down-turn on planet. Summer's skills in geology and metalurgy had suddenly become an expense none of the mining concerns could afford. She was short of funds, and struggling make the ends meet.  
  
"Perhaps I could get some extra funds by selling your furry arse into slavery," She mused aloud, glancing at the cat over the rim of her mug. Socks looked up, doing an uncanny impression of a deer caught in headlights. Then, with the speed of reaction nearly every cat is blessed with, she leaped from the table, and shot out of the room. A dull thump announced the end of her flight as she impacted something in the bathroom.  
  
Summer keyed the display back to life, placing her nearly empty mug back on the desk. A new message awaited. She keyed it on.  
  
"Good day, Doctor Gordon," a pale, gaunt face peered out her from the display. He was wearing, of all things, an eye patch, which was partially covered by a fall of steel-gray hair. He looked young, however--not much older than herself. "My name is Jamar Onyeagu. I've had it from some associates at Three Star that you have a fine mind. I have an engineering problem that none of my people seem to be able to get a handle on. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like you to take a look at it. I'm more than willing to compensate you for your time, If you're interested you can reach me at..."  
  
Summer tuned the rest out. "This fellow is probably one of those separatist who so thoughtfully cost me my job," she mused. She had developed a habit of talking to herself, since she was usually the smartest person in any gathering. Sock peeked back into the room to see if Summer was talking to her. "Maybe an Zentradi, though the skin tone and hair could just as easily be human, if odd.The sixty-four thousand pound question is; do I want to do a job for a rebel?" Seeing that her mistress was otherwise occupied, Sock began to clean herself. "I don't want to get in over my head here, but it seems unlikely this could be anything overly large or important. Why would he risk contacting someone like me? I could just as easily report him to the Spacy." Summer tapped her lip, blue-gray eyes looking out to infinity. "No, it has to be some simple problem his poor technicians can't handle on their own. Not five minutes work for me."  
  
A moment passed. "Bloody why not?" Summer keyed on her phone.  
  
IV delta-Orion VII, delta-Orion System, the Delta  
  
In the umbra of the gas giant delta-Orion VII, she was little more than shadow. An amored leviathan cutting silently throught the night. The only lights she showed where those from her scattered view port, and those were muted. Colored in a blue so dark as to be black, and muted grays, she was nearly invisible in the planet's shadow. Her organicly shaped hull was designed to defeat detection. Only one of the myriad sentry satellites circling the planet even glimpsed her, and it was sighting it could not confirm.  
  
To any casual observer, she might be mistaken for a stylish yacht. Some overblown pleasure crusier, painted by a vanity addled fool, in a scheme designed to create a massive navigation hazard. A more asute viewer would note the scatering of hatches across her upper and lower decks. Too small for cargo, aand too large and numerous for airlocks, the careful observer would surmise they hid missile ports and turret elevators.  
  
She bore no devices or emblems. Nothing on her hull indecated an allegiance. no pattern to give her a home port, nor any mark from her builder. She bore only a name; Retribution.  
  
For the better part of a day she had ridden her momentum, and the planet's gravitational pull. Hunting her quarry like some primordial predator crusing the deep.  
  
From her chair in the center of Retribution's bridge, Gewndolyn Stackhouse watched the holographic display showing the ship's position relative to the planet's fourth moon. The bridge, like the rest of the ship was a fusion of human and Zentradi design philosophy. Nestled in the center of the ship just ahead of the crew quarters, the bridge had no direct view outside. All visuals were holograms, occationally backed by flat panel displays. Stack's location, at the center of the bridge, was an homage to a series of flat movies from the late twentieth century. It was also practical. The old United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration had seriously looked at adapting the design for their own use. The bridge had two exits in the rear bulk head. The primary engineering station was situated between them, directly behind Stack's swivel chair. Communications, sensor and counter measures were handled from a station to her right, Fire control from the left. The helm control and navigation/traffic control stations were at the front of the bridge.  
  
Presently only the helm and comms stations were occupied despite the fact that ship was preparing for a possible fight. Stack keyed a toggle on her arm rest and adressed the reason for her nearly empty bridge. "Penny, how's our aproach?"  
  
A holographic image appeared next to Stack's position. It was a childlike young woman, with short silvery hair, pale skin and violet eyes. The image's face was elfin, and held a hint of mischief. "We're running silent, as ordered, Captain," the image reported. "We twigged the attention of sentry sat for about 0.47 seconds, but it didn't transmit a report. I've updated the nav waypoints to cut twelve minutes off out approach time, and uploaded the option course into the buffers. It does add another twenty- seven seconds to our exposure."  
  
"Half a minute isn't going to kill us," Stack said, brushing her own raven locks from her forehead. "Go ahead and lock in the new course."  
  
"Aye, sir" Penny replied, and vanished from view.  
  
"Comin' left, three point three-seven degrees," Vic Carter reported from the helm. He swiveled his seat to look at his Captain. "I don't know about this, Stack. If they' got orbital capability, they could cramble an intercept while we're still ten thousand klicks out."  
  
"If they have orbital capability, we're already over matched, and we'd best beat feet for the ring system and fold out," Stack shrugged. She keyed for Penny again. "Get me Hotaru. I need a report on launch prep."  
  
Her console beeped as the A.I. responded. Penny typically didn't manifiest unless she had a report of her own. Seconds later a holographic window opened next to Stack's chair. Hotaru Suzuki looked harried. A smudge of grease across her nose, and her dark ponytail bristling like the tail of a frightened cat, only added to the effect. She tried wiping her nose clean and only succeeded in adding a new smudge to her cheek. She started immediately.  
  
"Look boss, I'm doing the best I can with what I've got. I've almost got everyone lined up here. We'll be ready."  
  
Stack grinned at the image. "You'd better, or no Christmas bonus for you."  
  
Hotaru ended the conversation by closing the line.  
  
"You ever take anythin' seriously?" Carter asked over his shoulder. He was answered by a loud snort from comms.  
  
"I'm guessing Demitri doesn't think I do." Stack leaned back in her chair, which obediently reclined slightly. She crossed her legs at the ankles and laced her fingers behind her head.  
  
Demitri, a gray headed bear of a man, muttered something in Russian, not bothering with turning or attempting to join the conversation.  
  
Stack chuckled, as Carter returned to to his job. "Time to planetfall, forty-nine minutes, at present speed."  
  
Stack nodded, but said nothing. Fifty minutes was a long time to wait.  
  
Ten minutes later things changed.  
  
Penny manifested beside Stack's chair, just as Demitri gave a low grunt. "We've got trouble," the A.I. said, flatly.  
  
Stack was out of her seat as soon as the A.I. appeared. Standing, she couldn't hep but wish she could convince Dara to reprogram Penny's image. At a meager 145 centimeters--and that was being generous--Stack was the shortest person on the ship. It rankled that even he holograms were taller. "What have you got Mr. Ivanov?" she asked the comms operator. She could have asked Penny, but there was a reason she had live people running her ship.  
  
"I am detecting actiwity at de target sight," the man said, his deep voice and thick accent slurring the words. "I am guessing dey are not avare of our course correction. De moon's rotation vould have taken dem out of sensor range two minutes ago."  
  
"I concur," Penny said, nearly in Stack's ear. The A.I. was "standing" close enough to spook her. "I've isolated seventeen discreet radiation sources. The read mostly as heat blumes. I calculate an eighty-four percent probablitly that they represent reaction power plants with limited sheilding. Signatures are consistant with the Regult tactical system."  
  
"Battlepods," Carter muttered.  
  
"Only seventeen," Stack asked.  
  
"Is difficult to be certain," Demitri said, his moustaches drawn down into a deep frown. "Ve are getting passiwe scans from a wery oblique angle." He assumed a tone meant to mock Penny, "Der is a degree of uncertainty." There was no love--artificial or otherwise--between the A.I. and the Russian.  
  
"I would have expected something better than battle pods," Dara Erich said from the port side hatch way. Dara was the opposite of Stack, physically. Tall were Stack was short, Fair were stack was dark, they appeared to be polar opposites on the surface. There was also a "family" resemblance between the woman and the A.I. "Are you sure we aren't following the wrog trail here?"  
  
"There is a less than zero point zero zero one three seven percent chance that this operation is not connected to Jamar Onyeagu or the Delta Liberation Army, based on availible data" Penny replied. "That calculation does not discount the possibility of intentional disinformation, but with independant verfication of seventy percent of the data set, the odds change by only zero point seven eight percent if disinformation is accounted for."  
  
Dara frowned, clearly disliking the correction coming from her own creation. 


End file.
